Human beings have recognized and interpreted celestial objects and events since time immemorial. The sky, our common and universal heritage, forms an integral part of all human cultures around the world. The Ancient Skies Project aims to collect, verify and publish available information about various human cultures and their astronomical knowledge in one single web-accessible knowledgebase.

The overall vision for the project is

In this paper we describe the basic tenets of the project, discuss the design of the knowledgebase, and compare the project to other similar projects.

The Sultanate of Oman is possibly unique in using stars to time the allocation of water in the traditional irrigation systems called aflāj (s. falaj), which are still an important part of Omani culture and sense of national identity. This is a rapidly disappearing oral tradition that has hardly been known about outside Oman prior to this study. The need for timing water shares is explained and the methods of stargazing described. The identities of the stars, their Omani names and the relationship with modern star names are discussed.